Certain Indications of a Performance

This news article about the 105 year old performer Johannes Heesters is interesting on a number of levels – longevity, the philosophical question of whether a live performance can live in the past, or whether it is only alive in the moment at hand and becomes something else entirely when it moves to memory – something contestable (hence the lovely line “certain indications of a performance”), or the role of the performer as a purchasable entity, or, indeed, the negotiation between performer and audience. This particular audience, of course, generating more consideration than others in recent(ish) memory.